Selected Posts from the Midd Blogosphere

Mapping in WordPress – GeoPress and GeoMashup

Robyn Tendai-Whyte and I just ran GeoPress and GeoMashup through the paces today. Both performed beautifully after a bit of massaging (and reading the directions!) Here are a few tips that we found helpful for anyone at Middlebury who would like to geo-locate their blog.

This plugin will allow you to take any post and add a Google map with a stick pin location. This is a nice feature for bloggers who are traveling, or who would like to give geographic location to a historical reference.

To use this plugin-

Click on the “Plugins” link in the upper right hand corner of your blog’s Dashboard.

Click the “Activate” link to the right of the GeoPress plugin.

Click on the GeoPress tab, just under the name of your blog in the upper-left.

GeoMashup works in a different way. It will take all posts that have a location added, and create one map on a single page with a stick pin for every location.

To use this plugin-

Click on the “Plugins” link in the upper right hand corner of your blog’s Dashboard.

Click the “Activate” link to the right of the GeoMashup plugin.

Click on the Settings tab in the upper-right.

Click on the “Geo Mashup” tab.

Get a GoogleMaps Key and paste it next to GoogleMaps Key. If you are using GeoPress, you may use the same Key (NOTE: Your key needs to be registered to your blog site: http://sites.middlebury.edu/[name of my blog])

Choose the page where you would like the map to appear.

Click on the UPDATE OPTIONS button.

In the page you selected, add <!--GeoMashup--> in the content.

When you write a new post, scroll down to LOCATION. If GeoPress is activated, this will be the second map.

Type in an address and hit return. You will see a pin with your location.

Save and Publish your post.

The page you selected will now have one map with every location on it. Each location will be labeled with the name of the post.

The two plugins are not mutually exclusive, but I do recommend starting with Geo-Mashup. GeoPress is great for individual posts, but the mashup page will visually show all of your locations in one place.

I installed them both separately on a local server and found that Geopress caused some memory allocation errors (possible conflict with other plugins). I installed Geo-Mashup and it seemed to work straightaway.